Monday, April 28, 2008

Created Anew

(Picture courtesy of af.mil)

A person is created anew each Pesach. He can be considered as if he were brought out of Egypt as a newborn baby.

These words from the Sfas Emes remained in my mind throughout yom tov. While they express a beautiful and inspiring thought, I wondered whether they could be understood literally. It seemed hard to fathom that I could now be considered as a completely new person since all of the negative character traits and shortcomings that were present on the 14th of Nissan were also still present on the 15th of Nissan.

Having seen this teaching quoted in Pninei HaChassidus - Pesach & Sefirat HaOmer and not in the original sefer, I sought out a further explanation from an elderly chassid. We sat down together one night during Chol HaMoed and I opened up this sefer and asked him my question that had been weighing on my mind.

The elderly chassid explained to me that the unique character of Pesach is that on this yom tov Hashem gives a person a new ability to overcome the obstacles in front of him. Pesach does not merely give him a renewed vitality, but rather an infusion of an entirely new vitality. While a person may certainly have all the negative character traits on the 15th of Nissan that he had on the 14th of Nissan, the yom tov of Pesach gives him abilities that had never had before in his life and enables him to succeed where he may have previously failed. In this way, it can be considered as if he was created as a completely new being.